


where i left my lover

by awenswords



Series: The Magicians One-Shots [5]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Death, M/M, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 04:59:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18087896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awenswords/pseuds/awenswords
Summary: Hot concrete. It’s the first thing Eliot notices when he’s flung back into his body.





	where i left my lover

Hot concrete. It’s the first thing Eliot notices when he’s flung back into his body.

Hot concrete beneath his palms, staining his fingertips black from charcoal asphalt. Every little grain is almost painful, he has to pause and close his eyes and explore the deliciously real feeling of a crack in the road, filled with pebbles and dead grass and all things creepy-crawly.

“Quentin?” He calls, voice hoarse, “Margo?”

A flat grassy field stretches out to the horizon. Cows graze in the distance. A rabbit scurries across the road. Eliot is alone.

There’s no wind. Damp sweat leaves dark curls sticking to the nape of his neck. He raises his hand, feeling itchy with a too-thick coat draped over his too-thin frame (long arms, bony fingers, feigned elegance), and scratches at something clinging to the side of his face. His fingers come back flaked with red, like sheets of mica shining in broken beer bottle sand.

A fly buzz buzz buzzes behind his head, lazy loops. He bats at it half-heartedly.

He runs his tongue along his teeth and frowns at the gunky plaque that’s built up between his molars. Gross.

There’s a car in the distance, coming closer along the bare expanse of a highway, kicking up foxtails and burrs. Slowing down as it nears him, the driver lowers her window and pulls to a near stop, “You need me to call someone, mister?” She yells, sun-tanned face and smile-lines around her eyes. When she speaks, he sees teeth stained brown from tobacco. Eliot screws his nose up against the smell of gas and nicotine.

He shakes his head and she shrugs, adjusting her dollar store visor and careening back down the road.

Eliot stumbles to his feet and spits out a wad of bubblegum. Pink. Hubba Bubba. Too sweet.

His head hurts. Something smells bad in the air, it’s not tow-truck gasoline or cheap cigarettes. Smells like propane and metal and rust. Cow shit. Agriculture. Dead grass.

There’s not a road sign in sight, he realizes as he turns in a stumbling circle, nearly tripping on a cracked bottle of tequila. He follows the shiny liquid line, eyes wandering behind him to a car. Dented and dying, one tire flat. Smoking gently.

Eliot staggers towards it, shrugging off the heavy coat as he does so. It’s stifling. His t-shirt sticks to him. Sweat. Disgusting.

There’s a McDonald’s happy meal in the passenger seat. And a knife, perfectly puncturing the yellow dot of an eye.

Fear prickles down Eliot’s spine. The window is shattered. A wire fence pokes through it, stabbing into the worn leather headrest. Twin dominos hang off the rear view mirror.

There’s no-one in the backseat.

When he opens the trunk, his hands start shaking.

He vomits into a pothole and collapses onto his knees. Little pebbles scratch a hole in his jeans and dig into his kneecaps. He’s bleeding. Maybe.

Retching leaves his throat sore, blie in his mouth, blood on his hands. How hadn’t he noticed the red before?

He turns towards the car and sees glassy eyes and blue lips and screams, ripped apart by anguish. The ground is warm beneath his ribs when he curls in on himself, fingers scratching along his arms like he can claw off the guilt and grief and that horrible hot angry feeling that’s pressuring in his chest.

When he lifts his head, Quentin’s eyes still watch him. His head is still lolled to the side at an unnatural, rubbery angle. There’s a trail of blood down his chin, and his lips are blue. Eliot used to kiss those lips.

He can see his intensities, dragged out of his body. The trunk of the car is all blood and gore and Eliot can’t even cry, he can only screw his eyes shut and stroke Q’s cold face.

He hauls himself to his feet, twists his hands and tries a spell, tells himself that it’ll work, it has to. He can’t cry because Quentin is fine. He’s fucking fine. Everything is okay. His hands shake. It’s hard to cast when he’s shaking like a fucking orange October leaf.

It doesn’t work.

Okay. Next spell. His fingers are starting to cramp but it’s the least of his worries.

A car drives by. The wind stirs Eliot’s hair

Screeches to a halt down the road.

Eliot tries another spell.

He hunches over and presses a kiss to Q’s forehead, whispers “Peaches and plums, peaches and plums, peaches and plums.”

He’s still whispering and shaking and sobbing when the sirens start, blue-red lights getting closer and it’s so fucking loud.

“Sir - sir - put your hands behind your head and get on your knees.”

“Call an ambulance,” Eliot whispers, “Please, he’s - he’s alive, right?”

“There’s an ambulance on its way sir. I’m going to have to ask you again, put your hands behind your head and get on your knees.”

There are guns trained on him. He could use magic, fight back, but really, what’s the point? It’s his fault Q’s dead. The Monster killed him with Eliot’s hands.

The handcuffs are cold on his wrists. He doesn’t listen as they recite his rights.

The interrogation room with the one-way mirror and the metal table is stagnant. A blonde lady-cop asks him questions and he stares at his hands.

“Can you tell me what the deceased’s relationship was to you?”

Eliot laughs, hollow, lifeless.

His lawyer - a public defender - isn’t much help. There’s a murder weapon with Eliot’s fingerprints and Eliot won’t speak to anyone.

All he can think about is Quentin, dead in the trunk of the car. They found Margo’s body in a motel bathroom. Julia’s, in the apartment, next to Penny 23. Kady survived, maybe she’s watching his trial on the news. He’s not sure what happened to Fillory. Or Fen or Alice or Penny 40.

He tells the jury he loved Quentin. Apologizes to his ghost.

A gavel slams on expensive mahogany. Eliot twists the hem of his orange prison jumpsuit.  


Eliot Waugh is sentenced to life without parole.

**Author's Note:**

> i listened to bellyache by billie eilish on the bus ride home from work and this happened  
> say hi to me @awenswords on tumblr


End file.
